“As we have seen in the past, bad policy design leads to bad outcomes, which is why it’s important that we get these reforms right,” a spokesman for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told the Australian Financial Review over the weekend.

He was talking about the government’s promised gambling advertising reforms, which have stalled for nearly a year and a half. But Rowland hasn’t appeared to feel the same scrutiny is warranted when it comes to her proposed bill to ban under-16s from accessing social media.

On every level, the two bills make for an interesting contrast in just how much time, evidence and scrutiny good policy needs.

Time

Teen social media ban: The confirmation of a delay on gambling reform came days before the first and only hearing of the snap inquiry into the bill for a social media ban for under-16s, allowing three hours to hear from 12 witnesses. The public was only given one day for submissions — which didn’t stop 15,000 of them flooding in.

This followed a previous inquiry into social media use, which delivered its report earlier this month. The report did not recommend an age-based social media ban.

Gambling advertising reform: The standing committee on social and legal policy affairs adopted an inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on “problem gamblers” on September 15, 2022, following a referral from Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth (a month later it was amended to change the gambling lobby’s favourite term to “those experiencing gambling harm”). There was almost two months during which the public could make submissions; 161 were received.

After more than six months and 13 public hearings, the committee delivered its report in June 2023. It unanimously recommended, among other things, “a comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling, to be introduced in four phases, over three years, commencing immediately”.

No doubt extremely keen to get that policy design absolutely right, the government sat on those recommendations for more than a year, widely consulting with the industry before proposing a watered-down set of regulations.

Expertise

Teen social media ban: Macquarie University adjunct professor and clinical psychologist Dr Danielle Einstein — who has long argued that social media contributes to anxiety disorders in the young — told Monday’s inquiry that there were “no” benefits for social media and plenty of evidence of the harms.

The Office of Impact Analysis produced an analysis in support of a social media ban. The research it cited comprised two documents:

• A study whose co-author told Crikey that its findings do not support the case for a teen social media ban. “I think they have misunderstood the purpose and findings of our research,” University of Oxford professor of human behaviour and technology Andrew Przybylski told Crikey.
• A section from the US surgeon general’s advisory on social media and youth mental health. Which is based on the same “misunderstood” study. 

Gambling advertising reform: Apart from the intervention of former prime ministers, state premiers and Labor backbenchers, a raft of public health experts made submissions or otherwise put their name to recommending a comprehensive ban on gambling advertising. These included:

Have something to say about this article? Write to us at [email protected]. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.